


Mixed Blessing

by likeamigraine (eatintoothpaste)



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Afghanistan, M/M, Sherlock Holmes Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 09:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatintoothpaste/pseuds/likeamigraine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What he sniffed in the foyer was the smell of sweat and arousal, the smell of gunpowder and blood, all entwined with the smell of an ever-burning fag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mixed Blessing

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by **jg5799**.

John Watson would have recognised that particular scent of tobacco everywhere. It was carved in his memory, in his flesh, forever entwined with his sense of smell and with the Afghan war experience. It was something unforgettable, something always there, hiding beneath the surface, something that immediately reminded him of hot sand and cold corpses and of the taste of his own blood on his tongue. A whiff of that peculiar blend of tobacco was enough to send him on a trip down memory lane. And most of the things he was induced to remember were not so nice. Most of them, but not all of them, thank God.

But what he smelt in the foyer, at the Opera, was not only the scent of _that_ tobacco. It was something else, it was something more. It was something that still reminded him of hot sand and cold corpses, and of the taste of his own blood on his tongue, but it also reminded him of cold nights in a tent, in the desert, of hot bodies, heated bodies, of a soft and demanding tongue in his mouth, of warm hands on his sweaty skin, spreading his legs wide open or holding on his shoulders and back, sometimes on his rear. It also reminded him of smoking a shag with his breath still unsteady, sharing a smoke with that naked body lying atop of him, who smiled like a knife.

What he sniffed in the foyer was the smell of sweat and arousal, the smell of gunpowder and blood, all entwined with the smell of an ever-burning fag. It was the unique scent of his former fellow soldier, Colonel Sebastian Moran. A scent he could never forget, and – although Moran was already an arsehole back then, and he had now become their enemy in their quest across Europe against Moriarty – never failed to make him smile a bit.

Because, in Afghanistan, having someone to cling onto between a battle and another, a pile of corpses and another, meant everything – it was the best currency to buy some extra sanity, in order to, at least, _hope_ to go back to England quite sane and balanced. That's why, in Afghanistan, having someone like Sebastian Moran was a blessing. A mixed blessing, obviously, but still a blessing.


End file.
